When Geelong won the 2022 AFL premiership, much was made of the fact that the Cats on Grand Final day fielded the oldest team in the history of league football.
Their 81-point demolition of Sydney was a triumph over football ageism. Even then, however, most thought that particular flag-winning combination would remain an anomaly in a game so often portrayed as more taxing on older bodies and minds than ever before.
But that's not proving the case. Well, maybe a little for Geelong, which has regenerated its line-up significantly and now has only the fifth-oldest senior list in the competition. But the AFL's current flag favourite isn't just old, it's older even than the Cats were in 2022.
We're talking about Collingwood, which just happens to play Geelong this Saturday night, the latter having passed the baton as oldest team in history to the Magpies.
It's a clash which only a few years ago would have been the hook for plenty of cheap gags about wheelchairs and Zimmer frames. But the Pies and Cats, and the likes of reigning premier Brisbane, are forcing a rethinking of once unshakeable mantras about the dangers of ageing in AFL football.
The 10 oldest teams ever to take field in VFL or AFL football have all played since 2020. And all 10 have represented either Collingwood or Geelong.
When Collingwood powered over the top of Essendon in difficult conditions in the final quarter on Anzac Day, it was the Pies' experience and football nous which proved an invaluable weapon.
The Anzac Medal was won by 34-year-old Steele Sidebottom, who racked up 35 disposals and 15 clearances.
Scott Pendlebury, at 37 three years Sidebottom's elder, was among Collingwood's best handful of players with 31 disposals and some clever invention with little chip passes off the outside of his boot at stages in the chaotic and greasy mess of the huge occasion.
Leading goalkicker by some margin, meanwhile, was the still lively 32-year-old small forward Jamie Elliott, who finished with a decisive five goals, the next best contributor managing only two. Thirteen players on Anzac Day, more than half Collingwood's team, were aged 28 or older.
The advantages to Collingwood of rolling the dice on the durability of their older players are of course experience and leadership, cool heads in a crisis.
That has never been more effectively spelt out than during the final term of the 2023 Grand Final, when Pendlebury ran the centre square set-ups and had 10 disposals, more than any other player on the ground, while Sidebottom calmly slotted the longest goal of his career to give Collingwood a match-winning lead with only just over four minutes remaining.
The obvious downside of the faith in the old heads is if lady luck doesn't do her part on the injury front, like last year, when the Pies battled injury all season and ended up outside the eight.
Increasingly, though, in the chaos and freneticism of the modern game, temperament and lived experience is the rudder guiding the ship home.
Geelong, meanwhile, turned over plenty of experience at the end of the last year with the departures of Tom Hawkins, Zach Tuohy and Gary Rohan, taking them from the second-oldest list behind the Magpies to fifth-oldest.
But as central as the likes of Max Holmes, Bailey Smith and Zach Guthrie are now to Geelong's fortunes, the old guard as still just as pivotal, Patrick Dangerfield at 35 in outstanding form, Tom Stewart still a critical defensive general, and Jeremy Cameron still the go-to man for goals, that pair both 32.
Even Brisbane, which superficially looks considerably younger than Collingwood or Geelong, is hardly a greenhorn. While the Lions last year had the fourth oldest and most experienced list, in 2025 they've moved up to second on both counts, eight Lions older than 30, and no fewer than 18 players having played 100 games or more.
The likes of Pendlebury have talked at length about the smarter approaches now taken by clubs and individuals towards recovery and preparation in older bodies. And the impact that has had on their influence over longer career spans is unmistakeable.
ABC analyst Cody Atkinson wrote recently that while only 12 years ago, players aged 32 or older made up less than one per cent of all AFL player ratings points contributions across the league, by 2024, that number had increased almost tenfold.
That smarter approach and tangible success it has delivered has encouraged most clubs to exercise more care with their "elders". It means than while in 2011, the average age of AFL players was 24, in 2025 that average is now 25.7, the highest figure since 1921, more than a century ago.
In a game that has become increasingly hard to play with sustained success at the highest level, Collingwood and Geelong are the modern day symbols of the value of football experience and seasoning.
Indeed, whatever factors determine the winner and loser of Saturday night's big game between both sides, you already know rawness and naivety won't be among them.
You can read more of Rohan Connolly's work at FOOTYOLOGY.